By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
The way
Zachary Patrick saw it, he had nothing to lose. The Winter Cup is an individual event, so there was no inner pressure to do well for his William & Mary teammates. And although it is a qualifying event for the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, that wasn't on his mind.
So Patrick, a senior who competes in the parallel bars, was completely relaxed. Which perhaps contributed to his score of 13.2, good enough for 12th place in a field of 32 gymnasts from around the country.
That was only half a point below his qualifying and career-high score of 13.7, which came last month at the West Point (N.Y.) Open. It was a pleasant surprise.
"I was talking to (Tribe associate head coach)
Bo Morris before we started warmups, and I told him, 'I think I'd be happy with a 12.5, 12.6 score,'" Patrick said. "But after finishing my routine and walking over to see my score of 13.2, that was extremely exciting. I was very proud of that.
"The scoring there is a little harder than college ruling, so I was expecting a significantly lower score. But I ended up fairly close to my 13.7 qualify. Seeing that score come up made it feel a lot more deserved, like it wasn't that I got really lucky at West Point."
Morris, who accompanied Patrick to the event at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, said his approach was a good mix of calm and preparedness.
"He hadn't been on the national stage with Olympians and people like that, but he's experienced," Morris said. "He was very prepared and it was an icing-on-the-cake kind of thing to his college career.
"After the Tippelt skill, the routine just kind of flows after that. That can be a little tricky. But he did really well on that, and I knew the routine was going to go well. It was a fun weekend for him."
His 13.2, the second-best score of his career, wasn't the only surprise for Patrick. An earlier one came on Jan. 30, three weeks before the event, when he was told he had qualified for the Winter Cup.
"I was pretty convinced I wasn't going to qualify at all based on some of the other scores I had seen," he said. "To hear I would actually get to go, I pretty much went in with the mindset that I want to do well but I'm just happy to be included.
"I wanted to do well because it would look good for the school and the team if I did. But worst case, there was nothing riding on it. It's a fun meet and it was cool to be there."
Patrick got started in gymnastics the way many little kids do — he had boundless energy and his parents looked for a way to harness it.
"They were like, 'Well, he can either run around the house or he can get instructions on how to run around the house but not get hurt,'" Patrick said.
A Navy brat, he grew up mostly in Virginia Beach and competed with Gymstrada Gymnastics. He was a two-time Level 10 Virginia State Champion.
Gymnastics became his chosen activity, but not his only one. Patrick is a PADI Open Water certified scuba diver.
"Whenever my family goes vacationing over the summer, we try to go to a bunch of different places," he said. "But scuba diving was always something me, my dad and my brother did. It's definitely one of my favorite things to do on vacation."
Patrick is set to graduate in May with a B.S. in biology. The first step in his post-college career is TBA at the moment, but there's something much bigger on his horizon.
"Graduation is May 15th to 17th, and I'm getting married on May 25th," Patrick said. "She goes to Christopher Newport and she's finishing her degree in finance."
